older (and lonelier)
by rhead-a-holyc
Summary: This was never supposed to happen. He was supposed to be chasing gold until his last breath. He was supposed to disappear like those heroes who left one morning and never returned. He was supposed to die trapped after chasing some new gold pile, like his parents.


**Quidditch League Season 6: Caerphilly Catapults**

 **Round 4: [Beater 2] Write about losing a pet (to death or otherwise)**

 **Prompts:**

 **\- (word) preposterous**

 **\- (creature) Niffler**

 **\- (song) How Bad Can I Be - Dr Seuss' The Lorax**

* * *

He heard their murmurs every night. Quiet scuffling that spoke of their annoyance and the echoes of whispers that held only bad wishes for him. He heard the rumours of how he would be kicked out when he started slowing down, when his body got older, his claws dulled against the ground and he couldn't hunt at the same rate he did now.

They were just jealous of how precise his instincts were – how strong his body was. He was quick, and powerful, and the most favoured of them all. There was no other reason for him to be the first to leave every morning and the last to arrive each evening. There was no other reason for his home to be the largest, with a larger collection of trinkets. His favourite was a little golden rat. It was his oldest pet; the one that had come before the large home and the dozens of pets and toys. He had received at the end of the first day of his job, and had seen it every evening since.

The quiet patter of its feet and the near-silent grind of its teeth on a seed or snack it had found, were comforting sounds. They reminded him that there was someone who didn't wish badly on him, who didn't care about what he did as long as he came home. Amidst jabs and barbs and remarks, that was all he needed. It was all he could do to ignore the rest of them as he passed them, but even that seemed to somehow reflect badly on him. They sneered and went out of their way to make his life miserable, even as he didn't recognise a single one of them.

Was he really that terrible a Niffler?

He hated the isolation forced on him. He hated that he had been forced to move there, where he didn't know anyone and didn't know how to just _meet other Nifflers_. How _were_ friends made? It seemed he only knew how to make enemies.

When he heard the singing and the laughter from other homes, he hid himself in his own. He was never invited to parties and events and gatherings, and he knew no one to invite to his home either. He was nothing more than the ghost that lived down the way.

So when his little golden rat came to him every night, snuggling close to his belly, he was finally able to relax. It was the only time he could feel a vague sense of 'happiness' that was described to be so common. His rat was the only creature that would offer him comfort, and he tried to offer that in return – with no way of telling exactly how successful he was, other than the fact that the rat always came back.

His isolation was probably how he had not noticed it at first, but soon, the ones with the barbs and jabs had disappeared. Instead, he came home with someone else at his side. Then he watched as others returned a little after him, and perhaps he wasn't as active because he was getting sick. That tended to happen, after all.

But once he had a partner, he knew things were starting to get worse. It wasn't just a momentary sickness. His owner really did think he wasn't good enough. Only the ones bad at their job got paired with another. The newcomer was young and bright, and he could remember being that excited once. Finding brilliant gold amidst the brown soil, sensing it from afar and running towards it.

Until his vision was filled with a dull brown that bordered on black, and his home was replaced with a new one; a little smaller with fewer toys, all more squeaky than shiny. His days were filled with brown-haired people, instead of his usual red, and he often had to be dug out of the ground instead of breaking through the surface himself.

Until his solitude seemed to matter more when he bumped into everything he possibly could. He heard the complaints about the _clumsy_ old Niffler that scurried about, but he knew he wasn't doing it on purpose.

No one got golden rats as pets any more. The new pets flew around, buzzing from one corner to the other, the warmth he had learned to associate with magic humming within them. He heard them sometimes, just like he heard the giggling of the younger ones following the sound of beating wings. He didn't think he would like the flying creatures more than he loved his rat. A winged creature wouldn't like to be cuddled like his rat did, nor would he be able to keep track of a flying pet.

He was weighed down by simply existing. His limbs were heavy, and his movements slow. His claws were blunt and his senses dulled to the point of non-existence. Being able to hear but not see squeezed something inside him like he was short of breath, and the sound of his heart beat filled his ears as it _hammered_ inside his chest. Even with the rat pushed against his abdomen, even as he feels the fur and grazes his hands over the animal, even as everything is familiar – it's all different.

Even his rat made him uncomfortable every once in a while.

He still heard the scraping and pattering and all the sounds that were familiar to him, a little slower, a little duller, but he couldn't see it any longer. He couldn't see the glinting gold of his pet. He could only open his arms as he lay in bed and hope his pet would notice and come to him – he would never be able to find the rat otherwise.

After finding even the smallest amounts of gold all his life, this was what he had been reduced to – he was the one who had to be found. He felt like an intruder in his own life. He had become the ghost he had once been named.

His mind still whizzed away, darkening every time his limbs spread, waiting for his pet to nestle against him, only to feel a cold and unyielding _something_ roll against him. The magic had aged with him, whittling away until it was just as much as ghost as he was.

It still felt the same. There was the little scar that ran across its back from the time he had tripped out of bed and injured his pet. There was another mysterious little bump on its forehead that he had never been able to explain. It was all exactly the same as it was before, but his little rat didn't scurry and and nibble – he clattered onto the floor every morning.

A heavy object shaped exactly as his pet was.

In his mind's eye, he could still see all the clear memories of gold, and his limbs still remembered tearing through soil. His body still remembered the weight of a beautiful little golden rat on his belly.

This was never supposed to happen. He was supposed to be chasing gold until his last breath. He was supposed to disappear like those heroes who left one morning and never returned. He was supposed to die trapped after chasing some new gold pile, like his parents.

He was supposed to be _the best_ for as long as he lived.

 _Preposterous._


End file.
